Thursday, February 23, 2017

Mike And The Mechanics

I’m not upset that you lied to me; I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you — Friedrich Nietzsche

In an unprecedented act of political suicide, Mike Nesbitt, hanged his political career as Ulster Unionist leader when he publicly stated that he would, transfer votes to the SDLP ahead of other Unionist candidates.

This remark was later clarified by him that it was a personal remark and not on behalf of the UUP and he made it clear that he was fighting this election not on an Orange v Green card but on a poll on the DUP's Foster.

Unfortunately for Mike, he absentmindedly forgot to inform his party of his personal intentions. Among his fellow Unionists, Nesbitt soon found himself as welcome as pork sausage at a bar mitzvah.

Danny Kennedy, leader in waiting post March 2nd, urged his voters in his constituency to do the opposite and vote along traditional Orange v Green lines by transferring to the next Unionist candidate who just happens to be a DUP candidate. UUP Jim Rodgers threw in his support with that of Kennedy and Carol Black when he unequivocally stated that he would “under no circumstances” give his vote to the SDLP. UUP woman of the year 30,000 BC and UUP Banbridge Councillor, Black, resigned and questioned if Nesbitt was still even a Unionist. She went on to say that Unionists could:

do business with our Catholic neighbours,......there was nothing shameful in wanting to vote first for our own people, for fellow protestants and unionists – that doesn’t make me a bigot.

You can answer that one yourselves!

Unlike the vulgar and boorish crass bigotry of the DUP, Kennedy Rodgers and Black in making this call, have simply removed the eloquent mask of concealment of UUP racism, sectarianism and extreme bigotry and leaves the nonreciprocal Colum Eastwood and the SDLP looking featherbrained and rather foolish, with their olive branch having been fully slapped back in their face by the UUP.

Positions that only re-inforce the cynical view of voting – why bother? And it clearly places an unequal value on the voting rights of Nationalists compared to that of Unionists.

For the UUP it seems unethical behaviour bordering on the criminal, is more acceptable, than taking a stand on equal par with the croppy against possible corruption. You can climb up a few rungs of the ladder of equality but don’t for one minute believe you can ever reach the top.

Arlene Foster continued to attempt to clarify her Miss Understanding by Nationalists of her racial distaste and bigotry towards the Irish language, by presenting it as a cost issue and the fact that it would have equity and equality with the English language. On being pushed as to the costs involved she could only base her assumption on approximate figures allegedly derived from the Republic's annual spend on the language. Using this new and somewhat unorthodox accounting system, Foster continued to evade questions on costs of the DUP's Brexit campaign in London and naming who the donor was.

Arlene, clearly upset at being pressed on such matters, attempted to throw the conversation off track with a Trump curve ball in the remark that it was last June and how would you expect her to remember that. Sometimes the less said the better Arlene!

On launching her DUP manifesto and suffering from ‘man flu’ (nobody say it!) both she and her healthy but sympathetic Deputy Dodds’ took the unprecedented step of refusing to any questions from the assembled press due to Arlene's ill health. Which seems quite paltry in comparison to a very seriously ill McGuinness interacting with the press at his retirement interview ..... though ‘man flu’ is very serious, especially for a woman to contact!

Throughout her manifesto speech, paying lip service to all current social issues such as health, she harangued Mike Nesbitt's personal call to vote SDLP and laboured the tedious Unionist mantra of protecting the Union and the very serious threat that Gerry Adams’ ‘radical’ Sinn Féin posed to that unique relationship.

In fact she so repetitively mentioned Sinn Féin so many times that it would have been unfair not to award her the Fáinne Airgid for promoting the Irish language.

And I leave with you to ponder Donald
Trump's claim of having won the biggest college vote in years:

Anthony McIntyre

Former IRA volunteer and ex-prisoner, spent 18 years in Long Kesh, 4 years on the blanket and no-wash/no work protests which led to the hunger strikes of the 80s. Completed PhD at Queens upon release from prison. Left the Republican Movement at the endorsement of the Good Friday Agreement, and went on to become a journalist. Co-founder of The Blanket, an online magazine that critically analyzed the Irish peace process.